Death by His Grace

by Kwei Quartey

  “You said you called the bishop ‘back.’ Meaning you had called him before.”

  Gifty had a guilty look. “No, no I didn’t mean that.”

  Darko smiled. “Mama, after Christine called you with the news that Kate was dead, it was you who notified Mr. Howard-Mills, wasn’t it?”

  Gifty tightened her lips and folded her arms.

  Christine drew in her breath. “Mama!”

  Gifty turned to her daughter. “I felt you needed the bishop for comfort and support.”

  “Wait a minute,” Darko said. “You called a man we barely know to comfort my wife?”

  “You might not know him well,” Gifty said, “because you don’t go to church. If you did, you would know Bishop Howard-Mills as a gracious man of God who gives succor those who are experiencing great sorrow.”

  “I don’t care what kind of person he is or whom he gives succor,” Darko said. “This is my wife we’re discussing. How dare you call this bishop to ‘comfort’ her?”

  “She’s also my daughter,” Gifty shot back. “Or have you forgotten?”

  “No, I haven’t, because you manage to remind me several times a year.”

  “Darko,” Christine murmured, “try to calm down.”

  “Listen,” Gifty said, her eyes blazing at Darko, “at the time Christine called me, she was alone with no one’s shoulder to cry on. She was weeping, weeping. And where were you? You were busy inside the house at the crime scene. I couldn’t go there to hold her hand because I was babysitting the boys. Ransford and Nana were on the way there, but he was distraught as well. What could I do? We needed someone we trust who would have the right words to say. No matter what you think of the bishop, he is a man with a blessed soul who can lift up many a grieving person.”

  “I wish you two would stop bickering,” Christine said. “There’s enough stress as it is right now. Please?”

  “Okay,” Darko said sullenly. “Sorry.” His ribs gave him a sharp jab. He felt a little light-headed.

  “Are you okay?” Christine asked him, touching his shoulder.

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  But he wasn’t. The events of the past two days had shaken him, and now a discomfiting collision between his working and personal lives was unfolding.

  Chapter Twenty

  On the way to work Monday morning, Darko grabbed a copy of the Daily Graphic from one of Ring Road’s itinerant street vendors, who ran alongside the moving motorcycle to hand Darko his change.

  He parked in his favorite spot outside the Criminal Investigations Department and went through security at the entrance. The creaking, seven-story building had had a new coat of sunshine-yellow paint in an attempt to render it less gray and grim, but its age was unmistakable. The stairway was too narrow, and the stone steps were worn down with decades of constant foot traffic. Officers raced up and down, squeezing to the side if anyone was ascending or descending in the opposite direction.

  Invariably, Mondays at CID were chaotic. Darko wanted to see his boss as early as possible, but when he reached the fifth floor, he paused for a moment in the corridor to look at the paper he had just bought. On the second page, the headline was bloody weekend, underneath which was a picture of Gabriel’s savaged body surrounded by dried blood. At least they had the decency to cover his face, Darko thought. Showing photographs of murder victims in the press was practically a Ghanaian tradition.

  He knocked on the boss’s door and entered to find Chief Superintendent Joseph Oppong at his desktop computer. At a snail’s pace, the Ghana Police Service was relying more on electronic records, but the preponderance was still paper.

  Oppong was a thin man with a shock of white hair and a lugubrious expression. He seldom smiled, but his eyes were kind. Maintaining impeccable standards, he wore a neat suit and tie.

  “Good morning, sir,” Darko said, stiffening upright briefly in salute.

  “Morning, Dawson,” he replied, gesturing toward a chair on the opposite side of his desk. He took in Darko’s appearance. “You look awful.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Darko said, sitting down with care. “It’s better than yesterday.”

  “I’m glad. First of all, my condolences for your family’s loss.”

  “Thank you, sir. My wife is suffering the most. She was close to Katherine.”

  “I quite understand. Please convey my sympathies to Christine. Now, regarding the events of yesterday, the charge officer briefed me when I passed by this morning. But I need to get the full version from you.”

  Darko described in detail the extraordinary events that had unfolded at the church, and how he had forced himself into the mob to protect Peter Amalba from injury or even death.

  “I commend you for risking life and limb,” Oppong said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But,” the chief super continued, and, Darko thought, there’s always a ‘but,’ “let’s look at the reason you went in to save him in the first place. I gather your wife believes she might have observed this Mr. Amalba in the vicinity of her cousin’s home on Saturday morning.”

  “Christine is confident that she saw him near an unfinished home opposite Kate’s house,” Darko said. “She didn’t give it any thought until the man appeared at the church service.”

  “So this morning you will interrogate him and find out where we stand. What was he doing around Kate’s house? Does he live nearby? Did he kill Kate, and for what motive? Why did he stab the bishop, and why did he utter those Bible quotations? We also have the possibility that this man is not right in the head, so we must be careful not to be coercive or over-suggestive to him, especially if he’s a vulnerable individual.” Oppong leaned forward. “What I was about to say is that the case won’t stay at Dzorwulu. We are bringing it to Central.”

  “Oh,” Darko said. “And the reason, sir?”

  “Assistant Commissioner of Police Lartey called me this morning to inform me that we’re getting the case. He didn’t give a particular reason.”

  Darko was both startled and unsurprised. After Lartey’s promotion to his present rank, he was no longer Darko’s direct supervisor, but somehow Lartey’s influence kept appearing like juju.

  “Has the case been assigned, sir?” Darko asked.

  “Yes. To you, of course.”

  “Please,” Darko said, “if it’s possible, can the case be given to someone else?”

  Oppong frowned. “Why?”

  “The murder involves a family member, and so I might not be impartial.”

  “You were the superior officer at the scene, and you’ve arrested a man in possible connection to the victim’s death. How would it make sense to assign the case to someone else when you’re practically investigating it already?”

  “Sir—”

  “You are an experienced investigator, Dawson,” Oppong went on. “If bias is intruding, then get it out of the way. Stop arguing.”

  Darko clenched his jaw. “Yes, sir.”

  “So you start with the Amalba interview and move forward.” Oppong said. “Also, you will be training a new transfer from Kumasi—a Detective Lance Corporal.”

  “His name, sir?”

  “Not ‘his.’ Her name is Mabel Safo,” Oppong said. “She is supposed to meet you in the detective’s office by”—Oppong looked at his watch—“eight o’clock.”

  Darko had never worked closely with a female detective. Except for clerical jobs, women occupied a minority of the GPS posts. Darko missed his ex-partner, Detective Inspector Chikata, who had moved full time to the tactical Panther Unit. Over the years, he had become Darko’s faithful right hand.

  Detectives ranking Inspector and below did all their work in the general, all-purpose room on CID’s fourth floor, including interrogations. The commingling of suspects, witnesses and police officers made for a strange club. Darko went into t
he office, which was as noisy as Makola Market. He said hello to anyone who wasn’t too busy filling out reports or arguing about soccer or politics. One of the other chief inspectors jokingly asked Darko if his bruised cheek had resulted from a fight with his wife.

  “Yes,” Darko replied. “She won.”

  He spotted someone new—a young woman sitting by herself in a corner with her head bent over her phone. She was lean, almost skinny, but taller than the average Ghanaian woman and dressed in a tan trouser suit and white blouse. Her flat shoes were frayed around the edges just a touch. She wore her hair pulled back.

  She looked up as Darko approached and he could see her wondering if he was the person she was expecting.

  “Mabel Safo?” he said.

  “Yes, please.” She sprang to her feet as though her chair had propelled her.

  “I’m Chief Inspector Dawson. Welcome to CID.” They shook hands. “Follow me. We can go to my office where it’s quiet.”

  As they walked out, one of Darko’s superior officers called out, “Dawson! Be kind to her, eh?” and burst out laughing.

  “Always,” Darko replied. “Don’t mind him,” he tried to reassure Safo as he caught a shadow of worry crossing her face. “I’m not all that bad.”

  She smiled diffidently but didn’t say anything.

  Darko’s office was a couple of doors down the corridor. Inside, Chief Inspector Gove, with whom Darko shared the office, was eating a breakfast of rice and chicken stew. Darko introduced Safo, and Gove nodded at the new female officer with a mixture of interest and amusement.

  Darko asked Safo to take a seat on the chair just beside his desk. As he talked to her, he couldn’t form a clear impression of whether Safo wanted to be there or not. She spoke with hesitation and without much emotion or enthusiasm. Twi was her mother tongue, so Darko tried switching to that to see if she would loosen up. He thought he saw her expression brighten slightly, but then she seemed to withdraw again. Was she shy or timid, perhaps?

  As a corporal, Safo had worked at one of the district headquarters in the Western Region. To become a detective, she would have had to pass an exam, and most detectives were among the brightest of the police officer crop.

  “You’ve come at the right time,” he told Safo. “We have a suspect to interview this morning. It concerns a case that arose over the weekend.”

  Dawson gave her the particulars from the beginning. She listened, nodding from time to time but not making any comment until Darko came to the end of the story, and she said, “I’m sorry, sir. I mean about your wife’s cousin.”

  “Thank you,” Darko said, not wanting to dwell on it. He called down to the charge office and asked them to bring Peter Amalba up.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Amalba’s injuries were worse than Darko’s. His left eye was swollen shut, and he had lost a tooth in the melee. He walked with a limp and clutched his right flank.

  Gove had left the office. After removing Amalba’s cuffs, Darko had him take a seat on the other side of the desk. Safo sat beside Darko. Amalba bowed his head and rubbed his wrists. He was shorter than Darko with powerful arms and the physique of a sedentary Ghanaian man: thick around the waist with a slack belly.

  With Safo watching, Darko made sure he did everything by the book. He recited the legal caution to Amalba before beginning any questioning. Darko didn’t pretend that, just like his colleagues, he often didn’t bother to caution petty criminals. Few suspects insisted on having a lawyer present because almost no one could afford it. Many prisoners didn’t understand that right and the police sometimes took advantage.

  Darko began with some basic questions for Amalba, who was intelligent and well-spoken. At thirty-six, he was around Darko’s age and unmarried, but he had two children who lived exclusively with their mother. Amalba’s father was from the Northern Region, while his mother hailed from the Volta Region. Amalba had run away from home as a teenager and come to Accra. He had finished secondary school and up until a few weeks ago, he had been an inventory manager at one of Accra’s ubiquitous Max Mart supermarkets. At the moment, Amalba lived with his brother, Michael.

  “Is your eye okay?” Darko asked him.

  “It’s fine, sir,” Amalba said. “And yours?”

  Darko smiled a little. “It’s also fine.”

  “We thank God.”

  “Do you love God?” Darko asked.

  Amalba seemed surprised by the question. “Yes, sir. Of course, I do. And I obey Him. Always.”

  “Did He ask you to hurt the bishop?”

  “No, please. Our God is a loving one. What I did was my decision.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  Amalba looked Darko in the eye without flinching. “Because Bishop Howard-Mills killed the woman I loved.”

  Darko hadn’t anticipated that answer. “What do you mean? Killed whom?”

  “Katherine Vanderpuye.”

  Darko stared at Amalba. What was he talking about? “How do you know the bishop killed Katherine Vanderpuye?”

  “I saw him walking away from Kate’s house early on Saturday morning, sir.”

  Darko noticed Amalba said “Kate” this time. That was the name only those closest to her used. “When was that?” Darko asked. “At what time?”

  “About three o’clock.”

  “And then?”

  “He drove away, fast. When the house girl came at five, she opened the gate to find Gabriel’s dead body. She started screaming. After the neighbor had come over, the police arrived, and then the woman sitting with you at church yesterday. Is that your wife?”

  Darko didn’t respond. Leave her out of this, he thought.

  “Then, later when I heard Kate was dead,” Amalba continued, “I knew the bishop must have done it.”

  “You assumed so,” Darko commented. “What were you doing around Kate’s house at that hour of the morning?”

  “Sometimes, I checked on her,” Amalba said.

  Darko was baffled. “Checked on her? What do you mean?”

  “I couldn’t stay with her—not yet, but I used to go to her place to make sure she was okay.”

  A stalker, Darko thought. “How?” he asked. “Did you knock on the gate? Did you call Kate to let you into the house? What?”

  “No, I didn’t want to disturb her. I just looked in through the side of the gate to make sure her car was there, and then watched her place for a while from that house that’s being built across the street.”

  “Did Kate know you were doing this?”

  “Of course. I was like a guardian angel for her until the day we would wed each other. We were in love.”

  Darko frowned. In love? “Where did you first meet her?” he asked Amalba.

  “At the Qedesh, the bishop’s church.”

  “Who knew about this love? Was Kate’s husband Solomon aware?”

  Amalba nodded. “Yes. He was sad, but resigned.” He shifted his weight and sat forward. “All the family knew.”

  Darko tapped his fingertips on the table. “You are making this story up, Mr. Amalba. It’s just a fantasy. Isn’t that so?”

  Amalba looked away, setting his jaw like concrete.

  Darko tried a different approach. “How long had you been outside the house on Saturday morning when you saw the bishop?” he asked.

  “He was leaving at the time I was arriving—walking very quick, almost running. And he was holding a machete.”

  How would Amalba know that detail? Darko sat up to full attention. “Continue.”

  “He looked around to make sure no one saw him, and then he ran to his car and left.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I stood at Katherine’s gate and called out for the watchman, but no answer. I would have looked over the top, but it’s too high, and it has razor wire. So I decided I would
just wait a couple of hours at the empty building opposite Kate’s place.”

  “Something doesn’t make sense,” Darko said. “If you were in love with Kate, you should have had her phone number, and you would have called her to make sure she was okay.”

  Amalba nodded. “It’s true, but my phone battery was dead. The area where my brother and I live had been having a blackout for more than twenty-four hours, so there was no electricity to charge my phone.”

  Dead phones were a fact of life in Ghana with dumsor, so Darko accepted the excuse as plausible, but questions remained. “Why would Bishop Howard-Mills kill Katherine Vanderpuye?” he asked.

  “He was trying to take her away from me,” Amalba said. “He loved her, but she didn’t want him. He always invited her to the office behind the church saying he needed to counsel her. And it was there he tried to do things to her.”

  “Things like what?”

  “Dirty things,” Amalba said, his expression flat. “The bishop is a fornicator, even though he preaches against it.”

  “So you’re saying the bishop was fornicating with Kate,” Darko said.

  “Yes.”

  “Knowing that, and seeing Mr. Howard-Mills leaving the scene of Kate’s murder, why didn’t you report it to the police?”

  Amalba raised his eyebrows. “Sir, would they believe me? They would arrest me. Even now, please excuse me for saying, sir, you don’t seem to think I’m telling the truth.”

  He had a point. “So,” Darko said, “you decided to take things into your hands and kill the bishop in revenge?”

  “Yes, please. For the evil he perpetrated on Kate.”

  “Why did you choose to do it at the service in front of thousands of people?”

  “I wasn’t ashamed,” Amalba said with a shrug. “Why should I hide it? And where else would I get him? His home is like a fortress.”

  “At the church,” Darko said, “you quoted the Sixth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and yet you were trying to murder the bishop.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s why I also said, ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.’”